It has long been claimed that “maltreatment begets maltreatment,” that is, a parent's history of maltreatment increases the risk that his or her child will also suffer maltreatment. However, significant methodological concerns have been raised regarding evidence supporting this assertion, with some arguing that the association weakens in samples with higher methodological rigor. In the current study, the intergenerational transmission of maltreatment hypothesis is examined in 142 studies (149 samples; 227,918 dyads) that underwent a methodological quality review, as well as data extraction on a number of potential moderator variables. Results reveal a modest association of intergenerational maltreatment (k = 80; d = 0.45, 95% confidence interval; CI [0.37, 0.54]). Support for the intergenerational transmission of specific maltreatment types was also observed (neglect: k = 13, d = 0.24, 95% CI [0.11, 0.37]; physical abuse: k = 61, d = 0.41, 95% CI [0.33, 0.49]; emotional abuse: k = 18, d = 0.57, 95% CI [0.43, 0.71]; sexual abuse: k = 18, d = 0.39, 95% CI [0.24, 0.55]). Methodological quality only emerged as a significant moderator of the intergenerational transmission of physical abuse, with a weakening of effect sizes as methodological rigor increased. Evidence from this meta-analysis confirms the cycle of maltreatment hypothesis, although effect sizes were modest. Future research should focus on deepening understanding of mechanisms of transmission, as well as identifying protective factors that can effectively break the cycle of maltreatment.

Child–parent attachment quality with an adoptive caregiver at age 4 years was examined in a sample of 111 children adopted into the United Kingdom following early severe deprivation in Romania and a comparison group of 52 nondeprived within–United Kingdom adoptees. Findings indicated that, compared with nondeprived adoptees, children who experienced early severe deprivation were less likely to be securely attached and more likely to show atypical patterns of attachment behavior; ordinary forms of insecure attachment were not associated with deprivation. Within the sample of deprived adoptees, there was a dose–response association between duration of deprivation and disturbances in attachment behavior. In addition, a minority of children who experienced severe early deprivation were classified as avoidant, secure, or dependent using conventional classification strategies, despite also exhibiting atypical patterns of attachment behaviors, and this was also more likely among children exposed to prolonged deprivation. The results raise both theoretical and methodological implications for attachment research on very deprived children.

We examined childhood social withdrawal and aggression as predictive of adolescent maladaption, comparing and contrasting social and emotional outcomes associated with aggression and social withdrawal. We also focused on childhood social competence as a predictor of adolescent adaptation. The sample comprised 60 children for whom a complete data set was available at both ages 7 and 14 years. The predictors were aggregated measures of social withdrawal, aggression, and social competence derived from three sources—behavioral observations, peer assessments, and teacher ratings. The outcomes focused primarily on markers of internalizing and externalizing problems. The results indicated that childhood social withdrawal uniquely and significantly contributed to the prediction of adolescent loneliness, felt insecurity, and negative self-regard. Aggression predicted adolescent delinquent activity; social competence predicted felt security in the peer group and substance use in adolescence.

Research suggests that disruptions in early caretaking can have long-term effects on the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis, which mediates the stress response. Children of depressed mothers are at increased risk for developing internalizing problems in part because of disruptions in their caretaking environment. The present study investigated whether children of depressed mothers exhibit elevated salivary cortisol levels. Salivary cortisol samples were collected from 45 7- to 8-year-old children of mothers with a history of depression and 29 children of nondepressed mothers. Samples were collected soon after arrival to the laboratory and after a mild laboratory stressor and at home after wakeup and before bedtime. Children who had elevated levels of internalizing symptoms and whose mothers had a history of depression showed elevated laboratory baseline cortisol levels. Children who were reported to have clinically significant internalizing symptoms were also more likely to show an elevated stress response to a mild laboratory stressor. When the longitudinal history of maternal depression was examined, maternal depression during the child's first 2 years of life was the best predictor of elevations in baseline cortisol at age 7 years. This study provides evidence that internalizing symptoms exist in conjunction with a more reactive hormonal stress system in children of depressed mothers. The results also provide preliminary evidence that exposure to maternal depression in the first 2 years of life may be related to children's cortisol levels later in life.

The goal of this study was to examine sexual harassment in early adolescence. Available data indicate that peer to peer sexual harassment is prevalent in high school and is associated with psychosocial problems for both victims and perpetrators. For the present study, we adopted a developmental contextual model to examine the possibility that this behavior develops during the late elementary and middle school years and is linked to the biological and social changes that occur at this time. Youths from Grades 6–8 (N = 1,213) enrolled in seven elementary and middle schools in a large south-central Canadian city were asked to report on their sexual harassment behaviors with same- and cross-gender peers; their pubertal development, and the gender composition of their peer network. The results revealed that cross-gender harassment was distinct from same-gender harassment, increased in frequency from Grade 6 to Grade 8, and was linked to pubertal maturation and participation in mixed-gender peer groups. The implications of a developmental contextual model for understanding the emergence of this problematic behavior in adolescence are discussed.

Substance use changes rapidly during late adolescence and early adulthood. This time in the life course is also dense with social role changes, as role changes provide dynamic context for individual developmental change. Using nationally representative, multiwave longitudinal data from age 18 to 28, we examine proximal links between changes in social roles and changes in substance use during the transition to adulthood. We find that changes in family roles, such as marriage, divorce, and parenthood, have clear and consistent associations with changes in substance use. With some notable exceptions, changes in school and work roles have weaker effects on changes in substance use compared to family roles. Changes in socializing (i.e., nights out for fun and recreation) and in religiosity were found to mediate the relationship of social role transitions to substance use. Two time-invariant covariates, socioeconomic background and heavy adolescent substance use, predicted social role status, but did not moderate associations, as within-person links between social roles and substance use were largely equivalent across groups. This paper adds to the cascading effects literature by considering how, within individuals, more proximal variations in school, work, and family roles relate to variations in substance use, and which roles appear to be most influential in precipitating changes in substance use during the transition to adulthood.

The question of which informant on childhood behavior disorders is the most useful an'd valid for which disorders influences diagnostic accuracy and research findings. The present study focuses on 177 boys, most of whom had been referred to outpatient services because they were displaying disruptive behavior. The boys, their mothers, and their teachers responded to a psychiatric interview concerning the boys' behavior. Analyses of conditional agreements between informants show that children, as compared with mothers and teachers, were less adequate informants on their own hyperactivity and inattentiveness. The same applied to children's reports of their own oppositional behavior. In contrast, children's reports of their conduct problems tended to complement the reports by adults. Although informants agreed significantly on the presence of many disruptive child behaviors, there were several on which they did not agree, particularly in the realm of hyperactivity/inattentiveness. There were few age differences between older and younger boys in this sample of 7- to 12-year-olds. The implications of the findings for research and clinical practice are discussed.

The allostatic load (AL) model represents an interdisciplinary approach to comprehensively conceptualize and quantify chronic stress in relation to pathologies throughout the life cycle. This article first reviews the AL model, followed by interactions among early adversity, genetics, environmental toxins, as well as distinctions among sex, gender, and sex hormones as integral antecedents of AL. We next explore perspectives on severe mental illness, dementia, and caregiving as unique human models of AL that merit future investigations in the field of developmental psychopathology. A complimenting transdisciplinary perspective is applied throughout, whereby we argue that the AL model goes beyond traditional stress–disease theories toward the advancement of person-centered research and practice that promote not only physical health but also mental health.

Four different sources for cascade effects were examined using 9-year process and outcome data from a randomized controlled trial of a preventive intervention using the Parent Management Training—Oregon Model (PMTO™). The social interaction learning model of child antisocial behavior serves as one basis for predicting change. A second source addresses the issue of comorbid relationships among clinical diagnoses. The third source, collateral changes, describes events in which changes in one family member correlate with changes in another. The fourth component is based on the long-term effects of reducing coercion and increasing positive interpersonal processes within the family. New findings from the 9-year follow-up show that mothers experienced benefits as measured by standard of living (i.e., income, occupation, education, and financial stress) and frequency of police arrests. It is assumed that PMTO reduces the level of coercion, which sets the stage for a massive increase in positive social interaction. In effect, PMTO alters the family environment and thereby opens doors to healthy new social environments.

Maltreatment in childhood is associated with a significantly increased likelihood of psychiatric disorder that endures across the life span. If disorders emerge they tend to be more severe and less responsive to treatment. We introduce the concept of latent vulnerability as a way of conceptualizing the nature of this psychiatric risk. We argue that vulnerability to mental health problems can be understood as changes in a suite of neurocognitive systems that reflect adaptation or altered calibration to early neglectful or maltreating environments. Altered threat processing is presented as one exemplar candidate system. Heightened neurocognitive vigilance to threat is argued to reflect a calibration to an early at-risk environment that becomes maladaptive (and instantiates vulnerability) in the longer term. Other neurocognitive domains, including reward and memory processing, represent equally promising candidates for indexing latent vulnerability and warrant future enquiry. We suggest that the operationalization of latent vulnerability has the potential to guide a preventative psychiatry approach. Intervention currently occurs at two stages when maltreatment is confirmed: first, by addressing issues of risk; and second, by providing clinical intervention if a child meets criteria for psychiatric disorder. We argue that indexing latent vulnerability represents a third intervention opportunity, with the potential to target an indicated prevention approach for the most vulnerable children, offsetting risk trajectories before psychiatric disorders emerge.

Antisocial behaviors in females may differ from more prototypically “male” patterns of aggression, violence, and criminality that dominate criteria for conduct problems in diagnostic systems. This raises questions of how to define and investigate conduct problems in females as well as how to identify differential childhood antecedents. A developmental psychopathology perspective is advanced as one useful approach to understanding adaptive and maladaptive social patterns in males and females that may lead to different developmental trajectories and influence the forms of psychopathology that develop. The utility of de-emphasizing serious physical aggression as one important criteria for conduct problems is questioned. Recommendations that particular forms of deviance in females be considered as markers of their antisocial patterns (e.g., somatic complaints, friendlessness, underachievement) are also called into question. Rather than adopt sex-specific criteria to assess conduct problems, it is necessary to expand and broaden the diagnostic categories to include serious externalizing problems regardless of whether they occur in males or females.

Childhood maltreatment is associated with increased risk for most forms of psychopathology. We examine emotion dysregulation as a transdiagnostic mechanism linking maltreatment with general psychopathology. A sample of 262 children and adolescents participated; 162 (61.8%) experienced abuse or exposure to domestic violence. We assessed four emotion regulation processes (cognitive reappraisal, attention bias to threat, expressive suppression, and rumination) and emotional reactivity. Psychopathology symptoms were assessed concurrently and at a 2-year longitudinal follow-up. A general psychopathology factor (p factor), representing co-occurrence of psychopathology symptoms across multiple internalizing and externalizing domains, was estimated using confirmatory factor analysis. Maltreatment was associated with heightened emotional reactivity and greater use of expressive suppression and rumination. The association of maltreatment with attention bias varied across development, with maltreated children exhibiting a bias toward threat and adolescents a bias away from threat. Greater emotional reactivity and engagement in rumination mediated the longitudinal association between maltreatment and increased general psychopathology over time. Emotion dysregulation following childhood maltreatment occurs at multiple stages of the emotion generation process, in some cases varies across development, and serves as a transdiagnostic mechanism linking child maltreatment with general psychopathology.

Foster care is a protective intervention designed to provide out of home placement to children living in at-risk home environments. This study employs prospective longitudinal data (N = 189) to investigate the effects of foster care on the development of child behavior and psychological functioning taking into account baseline adaptation prior to placement and socioeconomic status at the time of placement. Comparisons were made among three groups: children who experienced foster care, those who were maltreated but remained in the home, and children who had not experienced foster care or maltreatment despite their similarly at-risk demographic characteristics. In the current sample, children placed in out of home care exhibited significant behavior problems in comparison to children who received adequate care, and using the same pre- and postplacement measure of adaptation, foster care children showed elevated levels of behavior problems following release from care. Similarly, children placed into unfamiliar foster care showed higher levels of internalizing problems compared with children reared by maltreating caregivers, children in familiar care, and children who received adequate caregiving. Findings suggest that outcomes related to foster care may vary with type of care and beyond the effects associated with maltreatment history, baseline adaptation, and socioeconomic status.Preparation of the work and the research described herein were supported by a National Institute of Mental Health grant (MN 40864) to Byron Egeland.

Hard-to-manage preschool boys and comparison boys were studied at age 4 years and followed at ages 6 and 9 years. Externalizing problems at ages 4 and 9 were associated with concurrent family stress, but this relationship was partially mediated by negative maternal control. Cross-lagged regressions indicated that despite the high stability in children's problem ratings, observed negative maternal control at age 4 and self-reported negative discipline at age 9 predicted externalizing problems at age 9 years, controlling for earlier levels of symptoms. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that problems were more likely to persist in the context of chronic family stress, defined as negative life events, marital dissatisfaction, and maternal depressive symptoms. When problem boys who met diagnostic criteria for Oppositional Disorder and/or Attention Deficit Disorder were compared with boys who were improved by age 9 years, family stress and earlier symptom levels, as well as maternal control differentiated between them. Teacher ratings suggested that these boys were on a clear pathway to persistent problems by age 6 years. A small sample of comparison boys with emerging problems also were living in more dysfunctional families and their mothers reported using more negative discipline at age 9 years.

Attachment theory predicts that maltreated children will form insecure patterns of attachment to their caregivers and that attachment relationships are open to change with development. In this cross-sectional/longitudinal investigation, we examined the attachment patterns of 125 maltreated and nonmaltreated preschoolers from the low socioeconomic strata (SES). Maltreated and demographically matched nonmaltreated comparison children were assessed in the Strange Situation at 30, 36, and 48 months of age, along with a subsample of children who were observed longitudinally across a 6- to 18-month period. Attachment relations were classified using a newly developed system for assessing attachment in the preschool years by Cassidy and Marvin (1991). Results revealed that, at each age, maltreated children were significantly more likely to evidence insecure patterns of attachment to their caregivers. The specific types of insecurity demonstrated by children varied with age. Longitudinally, the high percentage of nonmaltreated children who were classified as securely attached were likely to remain securely attached at subsequent assessments. In contrast, the small number of maltreated children who evidenced secure attachments were unlikely to be classified as secure at later assessments. These data provide new information on the patterns of attachment maltreated children exhibit in the preschool years.

The ability to talk about the internal states (ISs) and feelings of self and other is an age-appropriate development of late toddlerhood hypothesized to reflect toddlers' emergent self–other understanding and to be fundamental to the regulation of social interaction. This study examined the effects of child maltreatment on the emergence of low-socioeconomic status 30-month-old toddlers' IS lexicons. Children's lexicons were derived both from maternal interviews and from observations of children's spontaneous IS utterances in four laboratory contexts. Results from both data sources indicated that maltreated toddlers produced significantly fewer IS words, fewer IS word types, and proportionately fewer IS words denoting physiological states and negative affect than nonmaltreated toddlers. In addition, maltreated toddlers were more context bound in IS language use and more restricted in their attributions of internal states to self and other. Gender differences were also observed. Individual differences in children's IS language production were significantly related to general linguistic maturity in both groups but to toddlers' conversational skills only in the comparison group. In addition, a cumulative risk model describing the effects of the child's attachment relationship with the caregiver on early IS language was tested. Toddlers most severely at risk (maltreated/insecure) had the most compromised IS language. Thus, secure attachment may serve as a protective mechanism against self-dysfunction in maltreated toddlers.

Mutual regulation of anger plays a role in both healthy adjustment and mental health problems. This study of 85 preschooler boys and girls examined mother–preschooler anger regulation during a frustration in relation to the child's preschool and school age problem status. Less mutual positive emotion, more mutual anger, and more emotional mismatches than other dyads characterized dyads with a stable conduct problem child. Maternal emotion predicted school age conduct problems, particularly for boys. Maternal emotion also predicted stability versus improvement of symptoms. The emotional dynamics of mother–preschooler angry exchanges may redirect girls' conduct problems and may contribute to the stability of boys' conduct problems.

This cross-sectional study seeks to (a) describe developmental correlates of sensory hyporesponsiveness to social and nonsocial stimuli, (b) determine whether hyporesponsiveness is generalized across contexts in children with autism relative to controls, and (c) test the associations between hyporesponsiveness and social communication outcomes. Three groups of children ages 11–105 months (N = 178; autism = 63, developmental delay = 47, typical development = 68) are given developmental and sensory measures including a behavioral orienting task (the Sensory Processing Assessment). Lab measures are significantly correlated with parental reports of sensory hyporesponsiveness. Censored regression models show that hyporesponsiveness decreased across groups with increasing mental age (MA). Group differences are significant but depend upon two-way interactions with MA and context (social and nonsocial). At a very young MA (e.g., 6 months), the autism group demonstrates more hyporesponsiveness to social and nonsocial stimuli (with larger effects for social) than developmental delay and typically developing groups, but at an older MA (e.g., 60 months) there are no significant differences. Hyporesponsiveness to social and nonsocial stimuli predicts lower levels of joint attention and language in children with autism. Generalized processes in attention disengagement and behavioral orienting may have relevance for identifying early risk factors of autism and for facilitating learning across contexts to support the development of joint attention and language.

This is a theoretical paper about differences in quality of attachment in preschool-aged children with emphasis on the development of the goal-corrected partnership. Inferences are made about the processes underlying preschoolers' attachment behavior. Specifically, the notion of quality of attachment is expanded to explicitly include strategy, regulation of affect, negotiation, secure base behavior, and response to maternal behavior. The classificatory system is expanded by adding two additional defended patterns, that is, compulsive caregiving and compulsive compliance, to the infant avoidant pattern. Furthermore, at the preschool age, the infant ambivalent pattern is identified as having a coercive strategy. In addition, the disorganized infant category is reconceptualized in terms of complex organization, reorganization, and disorganization. Finally, the process of generating new theories and hypotheses through a “participant observer” methodology is considered from the perspective of developmental psychopathology.

Neuroimaging and behavioral studies have shown that children and adults with autism have impaired face recognition. Individuals with autism also exhibit atypical event-related brain potentials to faces, characterized by a failure to show a negative component (N170) latency advantage to face compared to nonface stimuli and a bilateral, rather than right lateralized, pattern of N170 distribution. In this report, performance by 143 parents of children with autism on standardized verbal, visual–spatial, and face recognition tasks was examined. It was found that parents of children with autism exhibited a significant decrement in face recognition ability relative to their verbal and visual spatial abilities. Event-related brain potentials to face and nonface stimuli were examined in 21 parents of children with autism and 21 control adults. Parents of children with autism showed an atypical event-related potential response to faces, which mirrored the pattern shown by children and adults with autism. These results raise the possibility that face processing might be a functional trait marker of genetic susceptibility to autism. Discussion focuses on hypotheses regarding the neurodevelopmental and genetic basis of altered face processing in autism. A general model of the normal emergence of social brain circuitry in the first year of life is proposed, followed by a discussion of how the trajectory of normal development of social brain circuitry, including cortical specialization for face processing, is altered in individuals with autism. The hypothesis that genetic-mediated dysfunction of the dopamine reward system, especially its functioning in social contexts, might account for altered face processing in individuals with autism and their relatives is discussed.The writing of this paper and the studies reported herein were funded by a grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD Grant U19HD34565), which is part of the NICHD Collaborative Program of Excellence in Autism, and a center grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH Grant U54MH066399), which is part of the NIH STAART Centers Program.